30 years ago on this day: Wankhede woe for Mumbai

Mumbai have won the Ranji Trophy a record 41 times but the tworun defeat to Haryana at the Wankhede Stadium on May 7 1991 exactly 30 years ago still hurts those who played in that Sanjay Manjrekarled team or backed Mumbai to win that summit clashBatting first Kapil Devrsquos Haryana posted a mammoth 522 thanks to opener Deepak Sharmarsquos 199 Chetan Sharmarsquos 98 and 94 by Ajay Jadeja For Mumbai debutant pacer Abey Kuruvilla and fast bowler Salil Ankola picked four and three wickets respectively In reply Mumbai struggled against offspinner Yogendra Bhandari 5118 and Kapil 354 but managed 410 after Sanjay Patil and Lalchand Rajput contributed 85 and 74 respectively But thanks to some superb bowling from Ankola and leftarm spinner Patil who claimed three wickets apiece and opener Shishir Hattangadirsquos offies 224 the hosts bounced back to bundle out Haryana for 242 Chasing 355 on the fifth and final day Mumbai lost their top three batsmenmdashRajput 11 Hattangadi 1 and skipper Manjrekar 19mdashwith just 34 on the board by lunch However Dilip Vengsarkarrsquos unbeaten 139 and a quickfire 96 from young Sachin Tendulkar gave Mumbai hope but those gems failed to take the team over the lineMumbairsquos wicketkeeperbatsman Chandrakant Pandit who claimed five catches in the game scored an unbeaten 40 and 12 in first and second innings respectively admitted that the loss is still tough to digest while Vengsarkar has been quoted in this newspaper several years ago saying he spent many a sleepless nightliterallyafter that lossldquoEven now after 30 years I am hurt by the way I lost my wicket playing that sweep shot to leftarm spinner Pradeep Jain in the second innings The top edge went to the cover fielder Deepak Sharma I think I got carried away as the sweep was my favourite shot I played a really bad shot which I should have avoided and been around to support Dilip who played a brilliant fighting knockrdquo Pandit told midday on Thursday ldquoDilip was very angry with the way I got out He uttered a few harsh words after I played that reckless shotrdquo Pandit recalledWhile crediting Vengsarkar for bringing Mumbai back in the game Pandit said ldquoWhen Dilip came to bat Kapil immediately took the ball and bowled a fiery spell But despite getting hit on a few occasions Dilip was determined to stay at the wicket which actually changed the equation of the match Till the last ball he was fighting for victory It was unfortunate that Kuruvilla got run out We needed three runs for victory and Rajput who was running for the injured Vengsarkar thought that one run would get Dilip back on strike But unfortunately Diliprsquos fighting efforts went in vain with that one run out That evening I saw Dilip cry for the first timeTwo current national selectorsmdashchief selector Chetan Sharma 259 and selection committee member Kuruvilla 5 were facing each other in that crucial over Rajput who is now Zimbabwersquos coach was at the nonstrikers end A misunderstanding resulted in Kuruvilla getting run out and Mumbai fell short by just two runsldquoIt was Diliprsquos fighting knock which almost got us to victory The way he thrashed Bhandari and earned 26 runs in an over with three sixes and two fours Haryana nearly gave up It was one of Diliprsquos best innings Luck played its part and we lostrdquo Rajput remarkedMore than the players that final was a treat to watch for thousands of spectators present at the Wankhede Stadium on all five days Cricket fan Sudarshan Kulkarni was lucky to get two passes from Mumbai pacer Raju Kulkarni who picked two wickets in the game ldquoI was playing club cricket at the time and along with my friend Mandar Bandekar I enjoyed all five days of the match which had some topclass batting and bowling performances from both teams Among several Mumbai supporters we too cried at the end of last dayrdquo said SudarshanJust like the players it was tough for scorer Uday Gharat 75 who was scoring in only his second firstclass game ldquoMy partner was Gangaram Sapkal The open press box made it very difficult for us to concentrate especially during the mandatory overs because of the noise from the spectators We did manual scoring then and this match proved to be a great learning curve for merdquo he saidThough Pandit ended up on the losing side he used that experience in his successful coaching stints with several teams ldquoI always bring up this game when I have to drive home the importance of fighting till the last ball of a gamerdquo Pandit concluded